Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives Information for potential donors & depositors 1 Trustees Staff Professor Michael S Goodman FRHistS Geoffrey Browell BA MA PhD FSA Chairman, Head of Department of War Head of Archives and Research Collections Studies, Dean of Research Impact, King’s College London Kate O’Brien BA DipArch Archives Collections Manager Professor Edward Byrne AC Vice-Chairman, Principal and President of Catherine Williams BA PGCE MSc King’s College London Archives Services Manager Lord Geidt GCB GCVO OBE QSO PC Jessica Borge BA MA PhD FKC Digital Collections (Scholarship) Manager Chairman of Council, King’s College London Frances Pattman BA MLitt Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman KCMG Archives Collections Coordinator OBE BA (Econ) BPhil DPhil FBA PC FKC Diana Manipud BA MA DipARM Senior Archives Assistant Nik Gowing Katrina DiMuro BSc MA DipARM Professor Sir David Omand GCB Archives Assistant Norma Percy BA FRTS Brigadier Zac Stenning, Head of Military Strategy, MoD Professor Andrew Stewart FHEA FRHistS Lis Hannon Director, Libraries & Collections, King’s College London 2 themed presentations and seminars for What is the groups of students and external visitors. An annual Liddell Hart lecture has been Liddell Hart Cent re for given since 1988 by notable speakers including Sir Max Hastings, Gen Sir Military Archives? Michael Rose, Professor Richard Holmes and Sir Jeremy Isaacs. The Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives serves as an archive repository for the papers and associated digital archives of senior defence personnel, Why King’s College authors and commentators on international security and defence policy. The Centre London is an also collects archives relating to television documentaries made by independent appropriate place for production companies. Founded in 1964, the Centre was in the vanguard of military archives repositories and museums which actively sought out private papers in the defence Established in 1829 King’s College field, following early discussion with the London is one of the oldest and largest Ministry of Defence and Cabinet Office colleges in London, with a staff of 8,000 about how it should operate with regard to and nearly 30,000 students. Military official secrecy. Studies have been taught in the College Since that time over 800 officers and/or since 1927, and in 1953 a Department of their families, including several Chiefs of War Studies, the first in the country, was General Staffs, have entrusted papers to established. It now enjoys an international the Centre's care and about 30 new named reputation for excellence in scholarship collections are added each year. The and research. The Centre works with War Centre actively collects material relating Studies, the History Department, the to events from the late nineteenth century Department of Political Economy and the to the present day. cross-disciplinary internationally based The Centre is regularly used by African Leadership Centre, Lau China historians, analysts, students and members Institute and King’s India Institute, of the public from all over the world and supporting undergraduate and postgraduate has a reputation for excellence in the field teaching and research in subjects including of military archives. traditional military history, the history of The Centre also undertakes a number of empire, analysis of the arms trade, strategic outreach activities to promote knowledge theory, and international relations. and use of the collections, including digitisation of selected original material to allow online access worldwide, and 3 Why you should What are the benefits consider placing to me, my family, or archives in the my organisation in Liddell Hart Centre for placing archives in the Military Archives Centre? Archives are the raw material of history, Apart from the confidence of knowing that the contemporary witness. As such they archives will be well cared for and will be serve as the source to which generations of available for study in perpetuity, there are scholars, writers and others with a simple several potential benefits for you and your interest in what happened may return time family. Disordered archives will be and time again to seek understanding and catalogued and information contained to judge the appropriateness of made more readily available to both you or interpretations offered by their peers and your family. Access to papers may be predecessors. As a unique and provided without inconvenience to you, irreplaceable part of our national heritage and letters from enquirers may be they deserve the highest quality of forwarded directly to the Centre for professional care. response. Both gifts and permanent loan At King's this means that the archives arrangements are possible and the terms of will be carefully arranged and catalogued both, including the handling of copyright, to facilitate the easy identification of are set out plainly in deposit agreements. information, including internet access, and These are available for review, discussion will be stored in conditions which broadly and amendment by donors, depositors and/ meet the British Standard PD5454 for the or their solicitors. preservation of archives. They will also be If you would find it helpful, the made available for consultation in ways Trustees of the Centre are also willing to which ensure that they are not damaged, advise on issues of sensitivity. In some stolen or misplaced. King’s Archives was cases it may be appropriate to close papers awarded Archive Service Accreditation by for agreed periods of time to reflect the The National Archives in 2016. closures of related official papers and/or to Personal data and sensitive personal protect the privacy of named individuals. data in the papers are held and processed The Centre's staff are also available to for archiving purposes in the public assist with transfer arrangements where interest in accordance with the General this would be helpful, including visiting Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and you to provide general advice, preliminary Data Protection Act 2018. sorting in situ, actual collection or making arrangements for van hire. 4 A Mark II male tank, Cambrai, November 1917 (Lt Col Sir Albert Stern papers) 5 our policy to seek to detach papers which How do I know may form an integral part of a major family archive of chiefly local interest. what you might be Where, however, archives are of predominantly military interest (the interested in? majority of cases in our experience) and also oc ntain some material relating to an The Centre's brief focuses on the military individual's post-service career or interests, and naval affairs and broader aspects of we would normally suggest that the international security of the twentieth archive should be kept together as a whole century. It includes papers concerning the at King's. nineteenth century junior service of Potential donors and depositors are officers who achieved senior rank after welcome to telephone the Centre if some 1900. It covers all the armed services, preliminary discussion would be useful. including the special services, and all wars, campaigns and peacekeeping initiatives in which British forces were engaged or acted as observers or specialist advisers. Also Who will be able to collected are the private papers of civilians concerned with defence policy and use the archives and can international security as either public I control use? servants or authors. Some indicative lists of our subject strengths and near Excepting closed material, and unsorted contemporary interests are given at the end material awaiting cataloguing, the archives of this leaflet but these are by no means are made available to anyone with a good exhaustive. reason for wishing to see them provided The Centre holds many types of they supply appropriate identification. material: diaries, correspondence, The Centre is open during office hours, including family letters where they contain Tuesday to Friday, except for bank information of military interest, working holidays, a small number of extra days at papers and files, texts of lectures, Christmas when the College is closed, and memoranda, unpublished memoirs, audio for one week each in September and and video tapes of events and January when the Centre closes for recollections, transcripts of interviews, stocktaking. Donors, depositors and their photographs, maps and plans and families will always be welcome to visit collections of press cuttings may all be of the Centre and use the material but we significance and value. It does not would appreciate some notice by telephone necessarily matter that these may have and some evidence of identity from survived as isolated documents since it is members of the family whom we have not often the case that a composite picture will met. emerge when several related items are put The Centre’s website, www.kcl.ac.uk/ together. Archive staff are also developing archives, gives freely available access to a secure preservation service for modern summary descriptions of virtually all the electronic data which will allow us to collections, and approximately 70 detailed accept and provide access to electronic catalogues of the largest and most deposits where these form part of a significant. collection. The Centre does not charge for access We are aware that the subject matter of nor for the provision of guidance about particular collections, on occasion, may sources. It does, however, recover the extend beyond the military field. It is not costs of its reprographic